When Wayne was a Whippersnapper: Traveling afar

Wednesday

Sep 5, 2012 at 4:00 AM

By Paul Locher Staff Writer

WOOSTER -- Because of various diaries and other accounts handed down since the earliest days of settlement in Wayne County, we know of the ordeals many pioneers endured just getting here, not to mention those that arose after their arrival.

Because of their all-too-vividly remembered struggles in taking their wagons through the near trackless wilderness and over flooded waterways, many settlers never again strayed very far afield from their place of settlement. Many never returned to the locales from which they had come, despite the fact that oftentimes family members remained there.

And so there are remarkably few descriptions of what it was like to travel away from Wayne County some decades after the opening of the frontier when transportation conditions in general had improved.

One such description, however, comes from James B. Power, who was born in Wooster on Nov. 7, 1819. When he was 10 years old, his parents moved to Holmes County. James remained there until 1841 when he returned to Wooster and entered the dry goods business with his brother, Neal Power, in a building on the corner of Buckeye and Liberty streets where the Nolle Block now stands. The two remained in business together until Neal's death, at which time James went into business with D.E. Liggett for five years.

In 1852, Power and his family decided to attend the World's Fair being held in New York City, and described how the progress on that trip was made in a stagecoach pulled by four horses.

He wrote that the party left Wooster in the morning, and by dinner time (today lunch time), had arrived in Dalton. Following that meal, the coach set off, arriving in Canton by suppertime. The next morning members of the party set out very early and arrived for breakfast in New Lisbon. After crossing Columbiana County they arrived at Smith's ferry on the Ohio River, where the party ate what he described as its "second noonday meal."

After that, it waited for the boat, reaching Pittsburgh the next morning at 9. From there the party boarded a second stagecoach at around 1 p.m. and, after traveling all afternoon, reached Greensburg for supper. After dinner, the members again climbed into the stage, aboard which they spent the entire night and all the next day until they reached Chambersburg.

From there they took a small "wagon tire" railroad to Harrisburg, where they were able to pick up a real train. That train took them to Philadelphia. From that point they traveled by rail north to South Amboy, N.J. At South Amboy they boarded a boat, which transported them up the bay to New York City. The whole trip took nearly a week.

Power married Martha Cameron Riley of Jeromesville on Oct. 5, 1847, and they had four children. They lived at their home on Spruce Street in Wooster for 47 years.